Maya Angelou: Hello. My name is Maya Angelou. It's a very beautiful name, I know. I mean I like it. I was born with the name Marguerite Johnson. However, I had a brother. My brother was two years older than I and a smartie patootie.

He had a lisp, and he stuttered, so he couldn't say Marguerite, so he called me My. Then, when he has about nine, he read about the Mayan Indians and how proud they were and how beautiful they were, and so he named me Maya, and he refused to allow me to be answered to any other name since I was Maya, and the entire family, my mother's people and my father's people, had to call me Maya. Then I married a man who his name was Angelou, so I became Maya Angelou, but I liked the sound of it, and I even liked the marriage, but alas, the marriage didn't last, but the name did. Since I had become known as Maya Angelou as a dancer and a singer, I kept the name Maya Angelou, and that was over 50 years ago.